My Thoughts are With Al-Arish

The terrible enormity of the attack on the Al-Rawdah mosque by terrorists under an ISIS flag is a stark reminder of the destructive nature of terror--its nihilism and ultimate defiance of meaning. There was no reason, no strategic rationale, no purpose, for these people to die at prayers. They were murdered by people who murder because they have found a group that lets them do so. The absolute grief and horror that the deaths of over three hundred people, dozens of them children, would mean to any community is impossible to contemplate without being stricken oneself with a sense of mingled sorrow, anger, and injustice. 

What has happened here defies the cold answers of political agendas and "thoughts and prayers" blandishments. Rhetoric: the kind of nonsense that parks itself between the political dreams and racial and cultural nightmares, and the call to use ersatz-spirituality in an attempt to justify outrages, lead to this bloody and brutal event, and my words are barely any kind of comfort because I think words themselves can only do so much. 

The viciousness of this act must speak for itself. But what it must say is that this tactic, this lifestyle of terrorism comes to nothing but grief. That is all there could be. People die, people mourn, and nothing is ever changed for the better because this is not how anything better ever happens. 

But I think the West needs to look long and hard, here. The first and last targets ISIS chooses will be, more often than not--Muslims. This is not about Muslim vs West. This is not a clash of civilizations. This is just civilization being violated by people who have lost their civilization. And that is not a problem with Islam, but something else. A problem with civilization, and its discontents. A failure to connect people to a sense of value. A romanticization of the idea of violence and war as life and culture-changing. I don't know what. I only know something so horrible could not ever be simple. 

I Don't Even Know, But I'll Leave this Here

Trump's top agenda item after report he gave classified intel to Russians: Call Jordan's King Abdullah https://t.co/WrXSkU3Wc3

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) May 16, 2017

It's been a little while since I mentioned the stupidity of how some folks want to relate to the sacrifice of Muslim-majority nations in the Global fight on terror when it happens to be Islamic-based. 

I don't really have anything else to add. If Trump is contacting King Abdullah of Jordan because he inadvertently (we assume, charitably) burned a Jordanian source and means to apologize, I don't even know what I want to say. But...

I am sorry our democracy has produced someone so inadequate as to fail the relationship we should have with our nearest allies in the struggle against the ISIS threat. I recognize, even if our current President does not, that Muslims are so often the main target of ISIS' violence(and even still, the threat of al-Qaeda). And if the Islamic allies that the US still has are soured on the United States' comradeship because of this event, I consider it my challenge to work to place better, wiser, more understanding government officials in place, who understand the sensitive relationship between stable regional governments, and extremist groups that have no capacity to govern. I do not know that my current government has this understanding, but maybe they can listen if approached with a will to inform.

That is all I can do with them.  Hope. And with my little platform, maybe inform--if not my government, then anyone who might listen.

Bombing Agrabah

 

I can't get too smug about 30% of Republicans wanting to bomb the fictional city of Agrabah from Disney's Aladdin when 19% of Democrats questioned felt the same way.  I think I'd feel a lot better if there were more people who answered "I don't know" on both sides. I'd like people to have the sense to ask "What did the Agrabans ever do to me?" before they discussed whether they should be blown up.

It just seems like too many people are in a rush to "bomb Agrabah". It's like a mental shorthand I think I'll use for things like when a Sikh youngster is arrested because some other kid claims he has a bomb in his backpack, and then is held for three days. Maybe checking what's in his bag and calling his parents first thing is what you'd actually want to do in that situation--not bombing Agrabah. Maybe when a class lesson involves copying Arabian calligraphy, shutting down school in the whole county is kind of like "bombing Agrabah".  Maybe firing a teacher for showing a movie about Nobel prize-winner Malala is making a decision to "bomb Agrabah".

Maybe it would make sense if people stopped to ask questions before coming to snap conclusions before they see the big picture. Like maybe asking who is liable to become an extremist and how they get radicalized, anyway. It would be a good start.

This Saudi Arabia Thing--I Might not be Off, Here.

When I talked about the crackdown that seems to be happening regarding Saudi Arabia and dissidents, like the treatment of Raif Badawi and Ali al-Nimr, I suggested their crackdown on dissidents wasn't without a potential threat to their existence--after all, there are signs, They are pumping oil like mad even if that's like beating a horse you know has a tumor. So reading this prediction of a collapse in Saudia Arabia of the current government is pretty interesting. My basic belief is that, because so many Middle Eastern people today being young and having access to internet through phones and such, they want more access to liberty. And they will find a way.

I felt the same way regarding the idea of a "Green Revolution" for Iran though. I'm very romantic about the idea of a positive democratic wave happening in the Middle East. We aren't so separated in our needs or our likes, once the voice of radicalism is bypassed. I don't think Saudis are so generally fond of their repression than Iranians or any other culture held back by religion.

I know this too, means a destabilization, but the fall of a regime that won't even let ladies drive or be out of the house without male escorts is hard to prop for.

Clocks and Nonsense

Of all the silly stories I could riff about, this one about the kid who built a digital clock for a science project and was subsequently arrested for making a "hoax bomb" completely takes the pudding. It's kind of hard not to suppose that the doofus teacher who added the name Ahmed Mohamed and the idea of "clock parts in a case" and came up with "Eek! A bomb!" is the only person here who perpetrated a "hoax bomb"--because the young man never told anyone he had a bomb. He had a clock. He was the victim of a dumb misunderstanding, but what gets me is--he got suspended for three days and is apparently still suspended even though everyone by now knows this was not a bomb. Is it that hard for the school to end his punishment and offer up a good apology?

Wow. Also, his parents got a pretty stupid letter from the principal at his school, basically blaming him for the misunderstanding and implying that building a clock was somehow a kind of misconduct because you shouldn't give dumb people any reason to believe you might be doing something they could in any way hopelessly misconstrue into an act of terrorism. (The community this kid and his family live in seems to be "special" regarding Muslims.)

Anyway, the young man has gotten support now from the President and from Rep. Ellison of MN and a lot of science-minded folks as well. There's also a Kickstarter to get him to MIT.

I'm not going out of my way to say I think this looks like profiling. At that age, I think if I was building a clock, I'd have half-assed it with one of those pre-set potato clock kits (just add potato!) Clearly, there could be suspicion that I was carrying the latest in IRA bomb technology. Luckily my tastes in the sciences ran to biology experiments (although my collection of assorted moldy, yeasty and fermented things I brought in to discuss beneficial and less-beneficial microbes in 8th grade should definitely have counted as small-scale biowarfare development).

We live in very weird times. It shouldn't actually be a handcuffing offense to do one's homework.

Governor Jindal is Stupid-Partying Again

For a guy who once sincerely seemed incensed about the GOP being "the stupid party", it seems sad to me that LA Gov. Bobby Jindal can't seem to keep away from the stupid. Continuing on the theme of otherizing Muslims in an attempt to seem serious about national security, Jindal makes two claims in a short period that are both pretty much bullshit: that President Obama is not "doing his job" and going after ISIL's leadership, and that Muslim clerics are not adequately condemning ISIL.

The timing of this assertion happens to coincide with a raid on ISIL in Syria (where ISIL seems to have been more active and less directly challenged) that killed a senior leader of ISIL, Abu Sayyaf and resulted in the capture of his wife, Umm Sayyaf and the freeing of their young Yazidi slave. It's like Jindal also suffers from the odd habit of mind that causes someone like, say, TX Rep. Lamar Smith, to believe that nothing is being done about ISIL, while of course, the US is doing actions against them, albeit ones that have not been authorized by an act of Congress.

I think Governor Jindal might be a little confused about whom is not doing what job, hmm? The US has been doing something about ISIL, along with a coalition of area (read: Islamic) forces.

Review of Eltahawy's "Headscarves and Hymens"

One of the tropes, I think, that ought to be played-out by now, is the idea that the Islamic world needs a "Reformation".  The paradigm of Islam post al-Wahhab and Qutb is the Reformation. This was the pull toward traditionalism and a new reverence for The Book. Mona Eltahawy's book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution points to a kind of Enlightenment--maybe the more apt and realist take on Islam. (I would compare her to Wollstonecraft.)  She discusses the need for a sexual revolution. I think her feminist take on the culture is necessary and timely. Her thesis is direct and her examples are not "exceptional" but only too familiar when looking at the depredation of women in various cultures.

In her book, Eltahawy takes on "purity culture" and the myth of the importance or value of virginity, as well as the cultural forgiveness for crimes against women's autonomy as seen in clemency for rapists who consent to marry the "damaged goods" of their victims (regardless of the ability or willingness of the victims to consent to the same). She discusses the pedophilia implicit in child marriage. She highlights the absurdity of a culture like that of Saudi Arabia, that forbids women the right to drive or go anywhere without a male chaperone, and how this strands women into regular choices between greater and lesser apostatic ways of simply existing.

Ahmed al-Jamaili never saw snow Before

The last day in the life of Ahmed al-Jumaili was supposed to be the first experience of an Iraqi in the US of snow. In Texas, which is not really the first state you think of when you think of snow.

For me, snow is a beautiful thing to sled on, make snowpeople with, lay down and make snow angels in. It's a clean and cold rain that stays on the ground.

For Ahmed al-Jumaili, it was what he saw in the minutes before he died. I don't know for what reason he died, but I am very sorry he did, before he ever really knew what fun snow was. Or how nice most of America could be, except that little part that killed him. And that little part is one I repudiate over and over again.

Scott Walker and the Litmus Test

Technically, there really ought not be a religious "litmus test" when it comes to achieving any elected office. It honestly should not matter whether our current president, Barack Hussein Obama, is a Christian, as he actually professed publically many times over and witnessed to as a member of Trinity United Church for 20 years, is a practitioner of Islam, having some incidental relationship with that faith having a father and stepfather who were in some respects Muslim, or even as I am, an intellectually inquisitive militant agnostic. The First Amendment technically means that everyone is free to worship as they will, and does not deny anyone their rights because of some heterodoxy. This needs to be understood as part of a long tradition within US history, where Islam was considered among many religions as part of the experiment in allowing such a freedom of thought.

Three Americans Gunned Down By Suspected Terrorist

Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife, Yusor Muhammed, and her sister, Razan Muhammad Abu-Salha, were gunned down in Chapel Hill, NC by a self-professed "anti-theist" and gun enthusiast who maintains that he killed the trio over a parking space dispute.

As of yet, I haven't heard enough of Craig Stephen Hicks' side to be 100% certain that he didn't just snap out and kill three human beings over a petty neighborhood squabble that could have easily been resolved in a handful of other, adult, peaceful ways. From the sound of things, he was a guy carrying a shit-ton of anger who made other neighbors a bit wary--and that isn't a good sign. Some people are like powder kegs. When they go off is a just a timing issue with their particular fuse.

Tu Quoque, My Ass.

King Abdullah of Jordan responded swiftly and forcefully to the actions of ISIL against one of his subjects and airmen, the hostage Moaz Al-Kasasbeh. He authorized an airstrike against ISIL. (No, FOX News and FOX News fans, he did not participate in the sortie himself, nor was he an actual crewman of the Federation ship Voyager.) It was one of many air missions flown against ISIL--in addition to a US-led coalition.

The US is actually doing something against ISIL. Has been. Like, it's been a problem we are dealing with--although even I use the shorthand of "getting into it" to mean "ground troops" when shooting up folks from air certainly counts for something (Kosovo, for example, was an air war). King Abdullah is our ally. And this is obviously just background for the point I want to get into--so why don't I just?

When I wrote about the offense taken by certain parties about the historical reality of President Obama's comments at the National Prayer Breakfast, I was largely addressing what I perceived as a deficit in understanding that ISIL was not some unique threat doing things we'd never seen before historically, and that it was absurd to think that the religion of Islam was the sole reason for their emergence. And yet, I have read instances online and even from liberals indicating their belief that this constitutes a tu quoque argument against doing anything against ISIL because westerners, Americans, or Christians are "just as bad."

Sometimes a Spox Clashes with the Decor

The guy who was communications director for Rep. Aaron Schock was totally fired for saying bad thing on the internets. As Schock points out--this sort of thing is unacceptable:

In a statement to the Peoria Journal-Star, Schock said that Cole offered the congressman his resignation.

"I am extremely disappointed by the inexcusable and offensive online comments made by a member of my staff," Schock (pictured) told the Illinois newspaper. "I would expect better from any member of my team. Upon learning about them, I met with Mr. Cole and he offered his resignation."

According to Buzzfeed and ThinkProgress, Cole wrote on his Facebook page that he thought, "They should build a mosque on White House grounds." He also wrote in the comments of that post that "It would be nice for the President to have his own house of worship, since he's not been able to find one suitable in DC since 2004 when he moved here."

Huh, and you know who all else never stepped foot in church after election?

Ecrasons L'Infame!

 

If I read the cover of the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo correctly, all is, actually, not forgiven, any crocodile tears regarding what happened from the usual intolerant suspects aside. And that is how the spirit of the magazine would have it, after all. If satirists can't roast the odd sacred cow, why not pack it in? It's hard to ignore that some of the leaders clasping arms in solidarity claiming "Je suis Charlie" pretty much are no such thing. 

 

I take issue myself regarding the curtailment of free speech--I am for countering speech with more speech, for having an argument, and for hearing out people I don't agree with so that I really know where they stand. There are hurtful words I don't use myself and would prefer others not use, but when I hear them said, it tells me something about the speaker.

 

This is why I take a little exception about what the Pope said regarding insulting or criticizing the faith of others. He says that one can not--or if one does, one should expect hurt feelings, if not reprisal. Andrew Sullivan beat me to the punch at picking a comparison of quotes from the current Pontiff, and a relevant section from the sayings of a certain Palestinian Jew of antiquity, who was, if Mark was right, sentenced to death for blasphemy.  To go a little further, I would say, the beliefs of the wide variety of people on the earth being what they are--one can't help sometimes offending or contradicting the beliefs of others. One man's heresy is another man's article of faith.

 

It also strikes me as a mistake to have some inviolate box that ideas we don't want criticized can be placed in with the label "religion" pasted on. What can't fall under religion's rubric? There's an amorphous quality to the idea that leaves it subject to the determination of whoever is in power. So to go beyond considering Raif Badawi, let's also consider his lawyer, Waleed Abu Al-Khair.  To the theocratic government of Saudi Arabia, simply being a human rights lawyer is a kind of heresy. Blasphemy laws are what gets Egyptian atheists thrown in jail. The question of how free speech should be, and whether blasphemy laws should really exist, must be considered--everywhere sooner or later. 

 

As for me, I am only interested in nailing up complaints, not people. Don't we wish everyone was?

Thinking it Over, I'm With Affleck and Kristoff

It's not like me to mull something like this over so long. For a long while I had a leaning in the direction that Maher and Harris are displaying, although to help their argument, I think what they are looking for is the word "fundamentalism". Unwavering fundamentalism in religion, a hard-core unwavering ideological belief system, is pretty basically pernicious and unhelpful and impedes dialog. And I will allow that it is true that majority Islamic nations have a high percentage of people who have fundamentalist Islamic views and that people who are professed Muslims tend to agree with those fundamentalist views, wherever they happen to be--although I kind of think this might be "more in theory than in practice."

I've done a bit of evolving myself over the religious question. I used to have a scarlet "A" from Dawkins' Out Atheism project on my sidebar, but I just don't care--atheism isn't an organized thing. And as my atheism might suggest, I ain't so much of a joiner anyways. I was skeptical of the idea that the US had to recognize the variety and specific understandings of people of faith in the areas we diplomatically dealt with, but think I got even then that we are dealing with a problem of multiple viewpoints. And now, considering a group like ISIL, it makes even more sense to embrace the Islam that mostly is practiced by moderate and peace-loving folks, to alienate the abhorrent chaotic nightmare these extremists want to wage, and share a common viewpoint that random violence and beheadings and all that are not acceptable.

Malala Yousefzai Wins Nobel Prize

She is the youngest winner of the prize, and she's basically a boss. Her co-winner, Kailash Satyarthi, has helped save tens of thousands of children from a life of slavery and exploitation. His long-time advocacy against child labor in favor of children's education as a way out of poverty is complementary to Yousefzai's example. I think these choices are very fitting, because it needs to be understood that the best way to create a space for peace in the future is to make safe spaces for children to become the people they are meant to be--to know something about the world they will grow up to help create and to be free to make the best of it.

In a world where too many children are exposed to the horrors of war, abuse, and grinding poverty and labor, and are not well-enough exposed to a good education, sometimes not even good nutrition or basic sanitation,  I realize that the failure to give them a reasonable hope of a good future is what condemns them to a fearful life and people in developed nations to fear what they might become. Because even without a good education, children learn from what they see. If exposed to ignorance and hopelessness and superstition and hate--that's what they will know.

And that is what they will practice.

But the answer to combatting all that is so simple--books and pens and paper and attention and a dialog that gets opened up between a developing mind and everything that might be possible.  Here's to two very good examples of people working towards heading future generations in the right direction. You are doing it right.